


St John's Wood

by Kastaka



Category: Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka





	St John's Wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timjr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=timjr).



 

 

Lying in wait was something that they generally employed someone less fantastically expensive to do, but it seemed that everyone they sent into the area where their employer assured them that the target could be found came out babbling insane, or was never seen again. They had come across one of the previous attempts, the scraps of flesh on the skeleton being busily dismantled by a variety of interesting beetles, so sour and miserable that even Vandamar spat out the one which he had absent-mindedly tried. But nothing came lurking out of the woods at Croup and Vandamar - more 'scuttling away'.

"Sometimes it gets so tiresome," Mr Croup remarked, "being an alpha predator. It is so difficult just to wander through the woods, enjoying nature's presence, when one scares it all away with one's mere footfalls."

"You just got to be quick," admonished Mr Vandamar, swinging some kind of small monkey by its hind legs. He casually smashed the struggling thing against a tree, and then sniffed at it suspiciously.

"Something is rotten in St John's Wood?" suggested Mr Croup.

Mr Vandamar did not dignify that with an answer, instead throwing the monkey straight and true like a sling bullet into the canopy. A satisfying squark and a brief shower of feathers demonstrated that there had been a bird sitting somewhere in the invisible depths of the greenery.

* * *

From time to time there was a prowling in the darkness, signifying that something large and agile was slipping between the trees, circling the interlopers, but it was not incautious enough to reveal itself.

"D'ya suppose he'll avoid us?" asked Vandamar, who had sat down on a log and was methodically picking up beetles, stripping off their wing cases, and throwing them over his shoulder.

"My dear fellow," replied Croup, "do you suppose he will dispsense with his usual habits, forego his accompaniment of servants and baggage-handlers, and creep through the forest like a common cur, simply to do us a grave discourtesy? No, he will come swinging a machete through the undergrowth, scaring off the native creatures with bullhorns, and generally announcing his presence in an unmistakeable fashion."

"Ooh, baggage handlers," mused Vandamar. "Maybe they'll have some meat on them."

"We can, as they say, but hope."

* * *

The first warning Mr Croup and Mr Vandamar recieved of their approaching prey was a veritable rain of forest creatures, small and large, displaying severe disregard for their personal safety on account of some kind of minor threat elsewhere. It was a sad sign of the extreme apathy into which Mr Croup and Mr Vandamar had sunk during their unseemly waiting around in this dismal, green, dripping place that not a single one of them was waylaid and slaughtered as they passed.

"Thinks he's a big shot," muttered Vandamar disgustedly, as he stood up and brushed the moss and discarded wing casings from his trousers.

"I think that he will only take quite a little shot to fell," replied Croup, staring intently in the direction away from which the creatures were fleeing. There was a scent on the wind, a clear and sterile scent, most unusual in this fetid place of rotting life, and a sound in the air, above the range of human hearing.

On further reflection, Croup was fairly sure that was a screaming kind of sound.

"Did you hear that?" asked Vandamar.

"It sounds as if our visit might have been poorly timed," replied Croup. "Or possibly we are just missing out on the most terrific entertainment."

They both broke into a loping run, without obvious communication.

* * *

The creature loomed triumphant over its prey, paws on the unfortunate man's shoulders, hind-paws pinning lifeless legs, licking its victim's face with its great, rough tongue. It was not quite a cat, and not quite a bear, and neither creature had such armor-plating, which it might have stolen from the armadillo.

"Shoo," said Croup, with appropriate hand gestures. "Scram. G'wan. Get out of here." The creature paid no attention.

"I could kill it," offered Vandamar.

"Mister Vandamar," sighed Croup impatiently, "while I appreciate that your skills are finely honed, and shall I say 'focussed', there are times and places for indiscriminately slaughtering everything in our path, and this, I deeply regret, is not one of them."

"Why shouldn't I kill it?" asked Vandmar petulantly.

"Because this is the Regent's pet," explained Croup slowly, in exaggerated tones of patience, "you know, the Regent who is a **frequent** customer, and who furnishes us with the most **exquisite** rewards, and would be a trifle **upset** if we were to **cold-bloodedly murder** the pride of his life and the apple of his eye."

"I still think a blade in the guts would do it the world of good," sulked Vandamar. He made some half-hearted snatching motions in the air and brought down a pair of shivering, flightless hatchlings, which he commenced to gently squeeze into unrecognisable blobs.

Croup approached the creature closer, and in his hand there appeared a rolled-up newspaper, from some hiterto unexplored crevasse in his suit lining. "Bad kitty," he said. "Leave it alone."

The creature finally did Croup the honour of looking up at him in a bored and unconcerned fashion, and yawned in his face, displaying its many rows of sharp and pointed teeth, to disappointingly little effect.

Croup thwacked it soundly in the nose with the newspaper.

For a moment the creature looked confused, as if its worldview was fundamentally damaged by Croup's action. Then it leapt.

"I don't suppose," said Croup, slightly muffled by the weight of the creature, "that you could attend to the necessary corpse disposal services, my dear Vandamar, while I weather this temporary inconvenience?"

"No problem," said Vandamar, hefting the corpse over one shoulder and heading off into the woods.

"Don't eat any!" called Croup as Vandamar left him to his bizarre fight with the Regent's pet, squirming and twisting out of the way in almost impossible convolutions to maintain the creature's attention while the necessary body was retrieved.

* * *

Mr Croup adjusted the torn collar of his suit pointedly.

"And a new suit," he added meaningfully.

"I believe that can be arranged," said the lady, glancing at one of her retainers, who nodded and immediately ran from the room. "Anything further?"

"D'ya have any of that calf's foot jelly?" asked Vandamar, looking hungrily at one of the remaining retainers. "Lurking's hungry work." 

 


End file.
